leonard writes -- he writes bobby and then and opens closed. we are in a kind of. [inaudible] [laughter] we are in a kind of marijuana tends. [laughter] dreamy, wondering week for. son's sentences seem to open up and lead time for which mr. leonard beasley slides. he doesn't just show you what these people say and do. he shows you how they breathe. now, all of his characters are terrible and pitiable and sometimes downright endearing and always very funny but they are junk souls. set against the cd blunders and every novel there is a positive value. the one i want to concentrate on is gibbons, recurring hero. [applause] rail and is perhaps the keenest character in the entire corpus, dead straight and all business, genuine enforcer unlike the gray areas skip traces, bad men and -- hu and mr. leonard work usually represent the law and order industry. it is a postmodern, anachronism from out of town and he is fascinating because he shows you what mr. leonard actually holds dear, the values he can summon in a different kind of prose, indifferent american rhythms. those